Anglo-Norman Dictionary Project
A revision of the Anglo-Norman Dictionary (London: MHRA, 1977-1992). The first part (A-E) was revised for both a printed and an online version ( www.anglo-norman.net ) with full search facilities, and linked to an extensive database of related texts; the Dictionary and the texts had been digitised with AHRB Resource Enhancement funding.
In May 2003, this project was awarded a Major AHRB Research Grant of £ 426,112 over four years (September 2003–07), for the revision of the next section of the Dictionary (letters F-H). The project, in addition to the two Editors, Professors D.A. Trotter (Aberystwyth) and W. Rothwell (Manchester), had two full-time researchers, Dr Virginie Derrien and Dr Geert De Wilde. In 2005 the printed version of AND2 was published (London: MHRA; xlix + 1107 pp.) and on 1 March 2006 the online AND was opened to the public (combining, at that point, A–H of the second edition together with I–Z in the first edition). A parallel text base of 76 integral Anglo-Norman texts, linked to the Dictionary and fully searchable, went online in March 2007.
In 2007, a further award, of £ 873,669, was made by the AHRC for the period 2007–2012. This allowed the Dictionary to advance as far as M. The project continued to be led by Professor D.A. Trotter as Chief Editor, with W. Rothwell as General Editor and Dr. Geert De Wilde and Dr. Heather Pagan as Editors.
A third AHRC grant in 2012 allowed the same editorial team to continue until 2017 with the completion of N-Q, and to introduce a new semantic field search system.
After the passing away of Professors D.A. Trotter and W. Rothwell in 2015 and 2016, a fourth AHRC grant allowed the editorial team, now consisting of Dr Geert De Wilde (Project Leader), Dr Heather Pagan and Dr Megan Tiddeman, to revise R-S, and to convert the dictionary into a historical dictionary with dates provided for individual citations.
In December 2020 the project was migrated to a completely new website, greatly updating its layout, functionalities and search facilities.
The AND Bibliography was published online in Spring 2021.
A fifth AHRC grant starts in October 2021, and will fund the final part (T-Z) of the revision of the dictionary. In addition, a searchable loanword-tag will be introduced. The editorial team of Dr. Geert De Wilde and Dr. Heather Pagan is now joined by Dr. Delphine Demelas.
Anglo-Norman, the form of French used in medieval Britain from 1066 until the mid-fifteenth century, is a major component in the development of the English language. Its understanding is also crucial to historians of the British Isles; and as an important dialect of medieval French (in which the earliest French literary texts were written), it forms a key element in any account of the history of French vocabulary. The language of a major European power in the Middle Ages, Anglo-Norman was the medium for a vast array of historical, administrative, and legal documentation. The Anglo-Norman Dictionary (1977-1992) is the only guide to this difficult vocabulary. The project's ultimate aim is a complete A-Z revision, which will produce an online resource three or four times the size of the first edition.
The new AND2 offers an exciting mixture of technology and traditional philological methods. The basis remains high-quality lexicography which has been recognized by major projects elsewhere, like the Oxford English Dictionary, the Middle English Dictionary, the Dictionnaire Etymologique de l'Ancien Français in Heidelberg www.deaf-page.de or the Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch in Nancy.